Absolute Power Quotes

As in the Divine Right of Kings, hierarchies invest those who preside at the top of their pyramidal structure with absolute power to rule over the lesser ranks that spread down like a marble staircase to the broad foundation stones of those with no power at all.

Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians.

We’re taught Lord Acton’s axiom: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believed that when I started these books, but I don’t believe it’s always true any more. Power doesn’t always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.

Historically, Islam was hijacked about 20 or 30 years after the Prophet and interpreted in such a way that the ruler has absolute power and is accountable only to God. That, of course, was a very convenient interpretation for whoever was the ruler.

We have all been told that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I have long thought this is nonsense.

I don’t actually subscribe to the view that all power corrupts. But absolute power – when secured on the back of massive parliamentary majorities, which don’t reflect the balance of political opinion in the country – can corrupt absolutely.

Those who desire to rise as high as our human condition allows, must renounce intellectual pride, the omnipotence of clear thinking, belief in the absolute power of logic.

What makes a narcissistic mother so scary? Her absolute power and controlling influence. A narcissistic mother is your only ‘friend,’ at least until you‘re old enough to go to school.

Does the manager have absolute power in England? No, it depends on a budget and on the executive director that negotiates the signings of players.

The problem with Russia is not corruption per se, or even Putin per se. Russian government is not corrupt because Vladimir Putin has absolute power. Russian government has been corrupt and will always be as long as anyone has absolute power.

What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that’s just not what the founders intended.

Anyone who seeks power wants absolute power.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I found that out when I was Attorney General in Massachusetts.

Writing might be unalloyed joy, were it not for the fact that power is always shadowed by responsibility. Thankfully, the absolute power that writers have is not weighted down with absolute responsibility. It can neither be suppressed nor diminished, except by choice.

Master of the universe but not of myself, I am the only rebel against my absolute power.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I tend to be more arrogant on stage. Far more ignorant. I sometimes say what I think and sometimes say the opposite of what I think and the lines get blurred, but I can only hope that some kind of absolute power transcends.

The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.